


fingers laced together

by elderflowergin



Category: Hyena (TV 2020)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:55:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25270489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elderflowergin/pseuds/elderflowergin
Summary: @thefeastandthefast commented: "Power barracuda couple Geumja and Heejae who quietly and efficiently deal with their enemies together and act as hidden guardians for the vulnerable while looking sexy as fuck is the future them of my dreams. This can't be the end, right?"READER, IT WAS NOT.Or: the story of Yoon Hee-jae (cont'd), the most infuriating ex-boyfriend in the known universe.
Relationships: Jung Geumja/Yoon Heejae
Comments: 22
Kudos: 21





	fingers laced together

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Again, exceptional thanks to @thefeastandthefast for all her help, but especially for not making me change the tenses here. 
> 
> 2\. This acts as a sequel to "everyone, see, i love him" and would make more sense if you read that, although you don't necessarily have to.
> 
> 3\. The title is drawn from Lorde's Yellow Flicker Beat.

In the years that follow, Yong-un gets promoted twice and somehow seems to have double the workload he had in his first year. New management doesn’t change this much; but he gets to hire his first junior prosecutor, Miss Koo, and then a number of them follow eagerly. Apparently the dream of sending the bad guys to jail is intergenerational, for which he is glad, since he has to sleep at some point. 

(He has a health scare in his forties, when he’s in court and keels over from feeling like his chest is about to explode. He remembers very little of it later, but he can remember Miss Koo dropping to her knees next to him in five-inch heels, cool hands efficiently removing his jacket and loosening his tie as she murmured gently, “Boss, head between your knees, just breathe,” and then dialled for an ambulance while the court officers watched haplessly.) 

He gets ribbed by the senior prosecutors about how even their wives wouldn’t step up to save them if they had heart attacks, and how does Yong-un get women to do his bidding anyway, which Yong-un completely ignores.)

So, altogether mundane, except for the near-death part of things. 

Yoon Hee-jae, on the other hand, has not had a mundane time at all. Far from it. 

The crumbling Yoon legacy seems to have liberated Hee-jae in ways he didn’t anticipate. Of course, it’s all still unethical and premised on cleaning up after rich people, but there is something about him, and Jung Geum-ja, and the way they run their business that Yong-un finds intriguing despite himself. 

In the years since they got together to run Choong, they’ve methodically taken apart Song & Kim’s entire client list and swallowed it whole. They act for major conglomerates and lawmakers and everyone in between; they’ve expanded their practice and bought their own offices. 

They look like mercenaries, but they also spend an inordinate amount of effort, time and money on their charitable endeavours. They raise money for women’s shelters and lend their time to legal clinics for the underprivileged. If there’s meant to be a torchbearer for whatever is left of the Yoon legacy, it might not be with his disappointment of a father or his milquetoast brother.

In spite of himself, though, he really does like Jung Geum-ja. 

She's a hustler, too, rising up from the dirt like Song Pil-jung, but she opted to work for what she has today instead of marrying up. Song Pil-jung sent her to her death, and she clawed her way out, came back fucking furious, and took him down, roots and all, the way Yong-un wishes he could have done. She’s unbiddable, unbuyable, and so wholly herself that he has no choice but to respect her. 

(She also gave him the pleasure of reading Song Pil-jung his rights, so all in all, she is the real deal as far as he’s concerned.)

The senior prosecutors talk about how she slept her way into Song & Kim, that there’s some sort of witchcraft involved (how else did she land Yoon Hee-jae, of course), she must have fucked Ha Chan-ho and Song Pil-jung (like consensual encounters would do anything for them, the evil scum that they are), but it shuts down once they meet her in court. 

He doesn’t disagree that she presents a mysterious allure for someone who is constantly covered up in suits from shoulder till ankle. (She supposedly wore a boucle Roland Mouret skirt suit to a criminal law conference once; his work message board exploded with horny paeans to her legs and the wonder of her ankles in Tom Ford padlock pumps, whatever those words meant, and about seventy percent of said messages were from the women.) 

His own junior prosecutor is a fan (she keeps him updated on Jung Geum-ja’s latest fashions and exploits whether he likes it or not) as are a majority of the women litigators. 

The thing is, Geum-ja cuts men off at the knees with alarming regularity, with little regard for status or power and in a way that will definitely have to evolve once domme services become more established and socially acceptable. Choong has a roster of insane clients - ranging from the sociopathic Ha siblings to the also-sociopathic Son heir - and she somehow has them all subdued in the manner of a highly competent big cat trainer.

With women, however, she’s protective and gently affectionate. She covers for them, charms judges for them and mentors everyone who wants to be mentored. Every single junior prosecutor he's sent out for cases comes back with stars and hearts in their eyes. 

He finds it interesting that for once, Hee-jae isn't the prize. 

What Hee-jae and Geum-ja are to each other is the subject of an entirely different strain of speculation. The senior prosecutors - mostly from a lack of imagination and way too much projection - think she’s a ball-busting cougar/vamp (whips and handcuffs are involved in this uncreative scenario) and he, her subservient Renfield.

There is otherwise no consensus, even amongst Choong's own employees, as to whether they’re dating or not. Since the D&T matter, they rarely appear in court together. They seemingly retain the same places they've always had and drive separately to the same events; they’ve never been seen out together recreationally except at concerts and even then, they’re always part of a larger group.

Neither appears inclined to date openly - and it’s not for want of effort on the part of eager candidates. Some have supposedly succeeded - in Hee-jae’s case, a mercurial popstar with BDSM-influenced music videos, and in Geum-ja’s, a rising young politician. They remained each other’s plus-ones throughout those attachments, which only drove the prediction game to a feverish height. They feed the speculation just by doing the things they’re supposed to do as representative partners of their firm, like appearing together at galas and KBA events.

Yong-un gets the breathless fascination; the fact that those two exist alongside each other and outside of prevailing social mores provides a level of heretofore unseen sizzle to a bored and boring fraternity. 

Any intimacy they do display - like the charity gala where they both wore tuxedos (hers, a louche Saint Laurent with the bowtie artfully undone and shirt daringly unbuttoned; his, a surprisingly conservative Valentino as if to not take the focus off her; collectively, a four-alarm fire that razed the Bar that evening, if his swooning junior prosecutor is to be believed) - could easily be ascribed to being on the same team. A businesslike intimacy, if you will.

And then, they do not-so-businesslike things, like what happens at the annual women’s charity football match. 

-

Jung Geum-ja plays defence (he tries not to laugh at that) and appears on the field with her colleague Ms. Boo and the rest of the team. In football clothes, cleats and a clean, makeup-free face, she looks diminutive and carefree. It’s truly not fair.

She also wears an oversized, suspiciously familiar jersey. The prosecutors’ text chains run amok almost to the minute. Miss Koo texts him directly, since he famously ignores most of his chat groups:-

KEH: boss

KEH: WAS Mr YOON’S JERSEY NUMBER IN COLLEGE 12

KEH: !!!!!!!!!! BOSS

He sighs, long-suffering, and replies despite 1) being at the match himself as his current girlfriend is playing for the other team and 2) the answer being bleeding obvious since Geum-ja’s jersey says YOON 12.

KYU: Yes. 

KEH: !!!!!!! MS JUNG IS WEARING HIS JERSEY AT THE MATCH

KEH: omg boss HE’S IN THE STANDS TODAY

KEH: i think i will die if they make out after this 

KEH: BOSS

Hee-jae is indeed at the stands with some of the Choong lawyers. His hair is ungelled, showing the light silver that has set in, and it curls a little in this humidity; his wayfarers glint in the overly bright May sun. He's got on a white linen shirt with rolled-up sleeves, cuffed grey pants that reveal a shocking quantity of ankle (for him) and periwinkle penny loafers. He spends the match giving two-fingered whistles and hustling the ref for no good reason. 

They don’t make out afterwards, though she does head over to the stands to chat with her colleagues. She goes to him last and high-tens him. Or at least, it looks like a high-ten until they interlace their fingers; he hunches over the railings and whispers something against her ear which makes her smirk.   
  
Making out might have made for a calmer day, he thinks ruefully, as texts fly across his phone about whether she might have blushed or not (Team No-Blush says Ms Jung has never blushed in her life, why would she start now; Team Blush insists that she turned pinker after the fact). Miss Koo takes to texting him directly. 

KEH: boss

KEH: remember when i said i will die if they make out

KEH: HOW IS THIS EVEN HOTTER THAN THAT

KEH: i think he grazed her neck 

KYU: I’m going to have to block you all if this keeps up.

-

Whether out of deference to his past with Hee-jae or for other reasons, Geum-ja tends to avoid him or not speak to him much directly. He likes it that way too, because for all that he admires her, it would still be a little terrifying. 

That all changes one cold Wednesday, when he’s rushing to get out of the courthouse and she appears on his threshold. His junior prosecutor looks like she’s fit to pass out (“Oh my god, boss, she’s wearing the _McQueen_ ”) and she calmly walks past him in her stacked boots, Prince of Wales check winter coat and a ginormous scarf, looking like she’s about to murder her fifth husband for his inheritance.

“Prosecutor Kwon,” she greets, polite and sweet. “Have you been well?” 

He looks at her over the top of his glasses. “I didn’t know we had any matters. Do we?”

She shakes her head. “No, we don’t. I wanted to talk to you about something else.”

Yong-un feels the urge to run out of the building and into the wailing winter outside. 

“Will you be at the dinner this Saturday?” 

He has to be, and she knows that too. “I should be. Why?” 

That’s when she steps closer to him and her eyes drop to his neck. With quick fingers, she deftly fixes the knot on his tie. It’s breathtakingly intimate, the sort of thing that you don’t do for men you’re not sleeping with, and she casually does it in full public view. There are rules, he thinks faintly. They’re there for a reason.

“You’re an important person now,” she says, reprovingly. “Your look should reflect that.” 

On anyone else, this would have sounded patronising. It speaks to her magnetism that in those few moments, it feels like they’re talking one middle-class kid to another in an unfamiliar, rich man’s world - protective and watchful - and he realises, _oh, this is what the girls feel like ._

She then looks up from his tie and at him directly. “Would you join Hee-jae and me that evening? We won’t keep you long, I promise. Just fifteen minutes.” 

He doesn’t want to make this easy. “You could just make an appointment with my office.”

An enigmatic smile spreads across her face. “How about, I want to meet you and not have it reflected anywhere officially?” 

“Why is it you who’s asking me, and not him?”

Her eyes are bright and panther-quick, all of a sudden. “I lost a bet.”

“Why were you wearing Yoon-byun’s jersey at the charity match?” He realises a beat too late that it’s far too telling a question to ask. 

“I lost a bet,” she repeats, fighting back a smile. “Is that all, Prosecutor Kwon? Will we see you?” 

-

Of course, when Jung Geum-ja said “join us”, he genuinely thought he meant at their table for what looks like a casual conversation. He should have known better. 

Choong has its own breakaway room, with an impressive bar, plush chairs and lighting low enough that no one will recognise him when he comes through. He’s summoned by Hee-jae’s secretary; and it occurs to him then that he hasn’t spoken to Hee-jae directly in, well, years. 

The room is filled with halfway familiar faces - ones he’s seen around but doesn’t actively recognise. No one from the prosecutors' office, though; he appears to be the only one. 

He doesn’t have to really look to know that Hee-jae’s at the table closest to the bar in a giant wingback chair, Geum-ja perched on the arm. She’s wearing a red gown with a men’s tuxedo jacket hanging off her shoulders - and what is almost certainly Hee-jae’s Breitling on her wrist. Clearly they never stop trolling their ardent fans. 

It’s Geum-ja who rises and greets him, and he can feel her cool rings against his elbow as she does so. “Thank you for coming. I do appreciate it.” 

Hee-jae looks handsome, unsurprisingly - it’s too dark to make out the exact colour of his jacket, but it’s well-cut, as usual. His mouth quirks a little, but he doesn’t bother to get up. “I’m glad you could join us,” he says, polite and neutral as he twirls a highball glass in his hand. He looks up at Geum-ja as she settles back down on the arm of the chair, arms folded. There is some unspoken conversation between them even though she’s not actually looking at him, and it’s far too intimate for Yong-un to be at ease. He wonders if this is their secret to discombobulating people. 

“I’ll get to the point,” says Geum-ja. “It’s about your boss at the service.” 

He tilts his head. “What about him?”

“He was hired as a reformer, yes? He was going to root out corruption, and completely revamp the service.” 

Prosecutor Park was indeed seconded to head the service two years ago. He'd been very political as a student, often seen heading protests and leading petitions. It was revolutionary at the time, but as with many things in life, what seems revolutionary ends up being more of the same. But that’s neither here nor there for Yong-un; he chooses to focus his energies on things he can control. 

For the first time, he sees hesitation in her face. “Carry on,” says Hee-jae firmly, looking at his glass. 

“Does he have many women working for him?” 

Come to think of it, no. Many of his current prosecutors are transfers from Prosecutor Park. They all claimed they wanted to switch to commercial crimes for the experience. He’d thought nothing of the fact that they were all women - they were all competent down to the last, and he just assumed they couldn’t adapt to Prosecutor Park’s work style. 

Maybe he should have been a little suspicious. 

“What’s this about, Attorney Jung?”

“Verifiably? Sexual harassment and abuse in the prosecutors' office, perhaps worse. Diversion measures for juveniles at the criminal court being used to mask human trafficking, though we’re still working on the sources for that. That’s the sort of revolution Prosecutor Park is fomenting in the service,” she says. “How many of the women under him transferred to your department?” 

He sharpens his gaze at her. “There’s an internal affairs department that deals with this sort of thing. I’m sorry if any of the junior prosecutors have come to you with their problems. They shouldn’t have done that.” 

She smiles humourlessly. “Do you really suppose that would work?” 

“As far as I can tell, you’ve come to me with a story about corruption and abuse in the ranks of the prosecutors' office that is allegedly happening under my nose. You’re defence lawyers; I don’t see why it’s any of your business. If you give me your sources, I can trigger an internal investigation."

Hee-jae has been so quiet that Yong-un’s forgotten he was there. “I told you it wouldn’t work,” he says, addressing Geum-ja while looking straight at Yong-un. “He’s a better Yoon than the Yoons themselves.” 

That still cuts deep, years after the fact. He looks to Geum-ja. “What’s your plan, then?” 

“Getting him out without any institutional involvement.” The way she says it sends chills down his spine.

“Just the two of you? You’re powerful, but not that powerful.” 

Hee-jae replies. “Us, half the KBA board, our clients and a good number of Criminal Court judges. What?” He asks, looking at the slack-jawed expression on Yong-un’s face. “My elder brother has finally realised that being by-the-book makes no sense when the book is a mess to begin with. He had an entire identity crisis over Father being corrupt and all that.” 

Geum-ja stills him with a subtle hand to the wrist.

“Prosecutor Kwon, you’re a smart man. You know how powerful your higher-ups are. Think of what they are doing, and think of what they’d be willing to do to cover it up. And ask yourself if anyone within the organisation will have the incentive to act.”

“If that doesn’t move you, think of Miss Koo, and the other young prosecutors under you. Think of the girls who have nothing, and are treated the way you wouldn't treat a dog, all because of men like Prosecutor Park. If you have any sense of justice in you, you’ll agree with me.”

He’s interested to see where this goes. “And if I don’t?”

She checks her watch - Hee-jae’s watch, rather - and looks at him, gaze direct and unflinching. “I’ll take him down anyway, _and_ I’ll poach all those delightful prosecutors. You decide. Yoon, I'm going to find Hyeon-a. Why don’t you send Prosecutor Kwon back to the dinner?” 

She rises, beautiful in her restrained, righteous rage. As she does, he sees that her right hand has been loosely linked with Hee-jae’s right. She pats his shoulder and releases his hand before she moves away, looking about eighteen feet tall.   
  
Hee-jae looks at him, finally smiling. “Shall we?” 

-

“You didn’t want her to do this, did you?”

Hee-jae considers this question. “Is it strange that after all these years, it felt like I would be disappointing you again?” 

Yong-un laughs. “You make me sound far too important.”

“I don’t. I genuinely wanted to protect you from it. She has different ideas, as you can tell,” he says wryly. 

“How did she win? Because she obviously did.”

Hee-jae can barely resist smiling. “I lost a bet.”

Yong-un turns away, shaking his head. “You’re a pair of assholes, I swear. Are you even dating?” 

Hee-jae tilts his head at Yong-un, and he suddenly looks like nineteen again, fetching in his shyness. “Do you really want to know?”

“She wore your jersey at the match.” 

Hee-jae has a reminiscing smile on his face at that. “Ah, that. Her secretary runs a gossip blog. That was me telling her how much revenue we’d gotten from her wearing my jersey. All for charity, of course.” 

“You’re not answering the question, Yoon. Are you?” 

Hee-jae thinks for a moment, considering. “You know, for the longest time, I thought that I had to fix what was broken. It turns out, I don’t have to. Dad hit the reset button. I get to make up the rules now. Are we dating? I don’t care. You can’t put a name or a price to what we are to each other."

“And you think this is the way to do things? Outside the system? No matter how much you love bending the rules, we’re all officers of the court. We took an oath to protect and preserve the institutions, not outflank them.”

Hee-jae peers at his face. It’s discomfiting. “When did you have your last panic attack?” 

_Last goddamn week_ , the answer comes unbidden. “For fuck’s sake. Are there no secrets in this place?” 

“It gets to you too, doesn’t it? Losing verdicts when you shouldn’t be, two promotions in a decade like you weren’t valedictorian, like you wouldn’t be _minting_ if you’d just picked the right side - tell me that doesn’t drive you insane.” 

There’s a comfortable lull in the conversation. 

Yong-un checks his watch and looks at Hee-jae. Under these lights, his tuxedo is a deep violet with lush velvet lapels, but the inner lining is a dark red, not dissimilar to the shade of Geum-ja’s dress.   
  


“Why don’t we get a drink,” he offers. “Tell me what you’re looking for.”

-

It’s late when Yong-un finally tears himself away from his handsome ex-boyfriend and his dreams of vigilante justice. He places a call when he’s in his car. 

“Boss? Isn’t this late for you? Did you need something?” 

“I’m sorry for calling so late. And what I’m about to ask you...if you don’t wish to disclose a thing, I will be fine with it. It’s yours to share or not. Alright?” 

She sounds confused, but she soldiers forward. “Sure, boss,” and Yong-un hears her voice over his phone speakers, tinny in the night. 

When she’s done, he doesn’t in the least expect that she’d be the one comforting him. He’s pulled over to the side of the road, heels of his palms pressed into his eyes. 

“Mr Kwon, I just wanted to say, thank you,” she says, fucking brave as he has never been and will never be in his life. 

Something catches in his throat at that, ugly and howling. “How on earth can you -- Miss Koo, you cannot _thank me_ , I’ve done _nothing_ . I got into this to do the right thing, and you -- I have _failed you all_.” 

“Boss,” she says, plaintive. “It’s not your fault. We’re -- we’re glad someone like you is at the service.” 

He rings off, then makes his last phone call for the night. It’s not as hard as he thought it would be. 

“Prosecutor Kwon,” says Jung Geum-ja at the other end of the line.

-fin-

  
  
  
  



End file.
